Re: espionage. Have a deck per side, and draw a hand per turn. They pick an action from the hand and the rest are discarded. Draw a new hand next turn. Should make it so there is something relevant each turn without stacking it too far one way or the other.
My intention for the deck is
- 1/2 related to actual espionage, sabotage, stealing of plans, defending from spies.
- 1/3 are normal operation bonuses, that is the "safe" options.
- remaining 1/6 are "gamechangers". They are very powerful but very specific in its effect and would incur a great cost (e.g. you have to discard your hand, or randomly discard X cards, or you suffer more control loss when losing until the card is discarded by some means). This provides armchair commanders of the chance of a more direct option made suddenly available.
Card examples:
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Industrial espionage. Espionage action. Select one enemy design. You now have this design. Discard 1 random card.
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Disappearing suitcase. Espionage action. You now have 1 random enemy design.
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Sturmabteilung. Prevent an Espionage action. In addition, if a battle is fought on a tile in the two rows closest to your side of the map (*), you can select X tiles to make all infantry small arms less expensive by 1. Discard 1 random card per tile selected.-
Mountain Warfare. Add 1 to your final battle strength for all mountain tiles.
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Rangers. Select 1 forest, jungle, or swamp tile. Add 1 to your final battle strength for this tile only.
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Cult of the offensive. National modifier. Add 1 to your final battle strength for every tile. However, for every tile you cannot win in, you will lose all of them and suffer 1 more control loss. Discard 1 random card. This card is kept in play until there is another national modifier played or it is removed by another card.
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Trenches. For every tile contested in this turn, if you lose by 1, treat it as a draw. Removes National modifiers for both sides.
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Blitzkrieg! All mobile and armor units are now less expensive by 2 for this turn. Add 1 to your final battle strength if you can deploy mobile or amor units in the tile. Discard your hand.
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You shall not pass! Select 1 tile. Due to successful delay tactics, You will keep your final control point on the tile if you lose the battle.